Tues: Gov Newsome vs Gov DeathSentence

This is Stupid, Dishonest, and Evil

Nikki Haley is once again trying to have it both ways. In response to a question asking her to define “woke” during a CNN town hall on Sunday, the Republican presidential candidate suggested that transgender girls in sports can be blamed for a rise in suicide rates among teens.

“How are we supposed to get our girls used to the fact that biological boys are in their locker rooms? And then we wonder why a third of our teenage girls seriously contemplated suicide last year,” Haley said, calling the topic the “women’s issue of our time.”

“We should be growing strong girls, confident girls,” she continued.

The former South Carolina governor appeared to be citing a recent CDC survey that found nearly a third of teenage girls have seriously considered suicide. But there is no evidence to support Haley’s assertion, which was swiftly blasted as anti-trans. In fact, the same CDC study revealed that LGBTQ teens are at higher risk of suicide and that transgender youth experience greater levels of violence.

There is ZERO Evidence for This. It Plays Politics with a Serious Health Issue. It Encourages More Abuse of Trans Kids.

I Guess New College Students are Doomed to Repeat the Past

Erik Wallenberg, a visiting professor at the New College of Florida and a detractor of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' efforts to take over the state's higher educational system, was unceremoniously removed, leaving the campus without a professor who teaches U.S. history, the Miami New Times reported this week.

"Though he'd been an outspoken critic of New College's recent anti-'woke' overhaul, the axing of his teaching position made little sense to Wallenberg from an academic standpoint," reported Naomi Feinstein. "'The social sciences department had been supportive of his planned return for another year, he had received positive student evaluations, and he had just published an American history research paper."

In an interview with the Miami New Times, Wallenberg elaborated on why he was surprised by his dismissal.

"They have no U.S. historians in the department, and they need someone to teach U.S. history," he told the publication. "They asked if I would come back, and I said I would definitely be interested, so they said, 'Great, we'll send over the offer letter to the provost's office,' and then the head of the social sciences division told me that it was being held up by interim president Richard Corcoran.'"

Russia Doesn't Give a Damn and Takes a Dam

What we know about Nova Kakhovka dam incident



My acquaintances in Crimea (Russian-annexed since 2014) are telling me that in Yevpatoria the local media are running a public service announcement to fill bathtubs, etc. with water — it may be cut off in the afternoon. Kerch is without water already.

Most of Crimea’s fresh water came from the Nova Kakhovka Dam reservoir. This reservoir now has been destroyed, most likely by Russian troops from the 205th Armored Infantry Brigade. Whoever ordered the charges (which had been planted well in advance) to be blown must fully expect Russia to lose Crimea.

What makes things worser is that the east coast of Dnieper river was heavily mined by the Russians in anticipation of Ukraine’s counteratack. These mines are now randomly carried by the floodwaters and occasionally exploding.

Have Pity on Poor Merck

Merck said it sued the U.S. government on Tuesday, seeking an injunction of the drug price negotiation program contained in the Inflation Reduction Act, which it argues violates the Fifth and First Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

The lawsuit, expected to be filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, argues that under the law, drugmakers would be forced to negotiate prices for drugs in the government’s Medicare health insurance program at below market rates.

Merck asserts this violates the part of the Fifth Amendment that requires the government to pay just compensation for private property taken for public use. (Negotiating prices is not taking private property.)

Americans pay more for medicines than any other country. The Biden administration’s drug pricing reform aims to save $25 billion annually by 2031 through price negotiations for Medicare.

But the pharmaceutical industry says the law, passed last year, will result in a loss of profits that will force them to pull back on developing groundbreaking new treatments.

Merck Earned $14.5 Billion Last Year. They Paid Out 55% in Dividends. That Leaves them %6.5 Billion for "developing groundbreaking new treatments"

This is Mostly White Guys Taking Over Black Cities and Towns, Without Winning Elections There

By reducing the right of localities to make their own decisions, Texas has joined dozens of other states that have asserted their dominance over cities in recent years through a practice known as state pre-emption. One watchdog group has counted more than 650 pre-emption bills in state legislatures this year; the large majority have been introduced by Republican lawmakers to curb policymaking in cities run by Democrats.

It’s not a new phenomenon — city halls and state capitols have always jockeyed for authority, and in a legal showdown, the state usually wins, as the more supreme power. But conservatives used to champion ideas like local autonomy, devolution and even block grants as a way of weakening centralized control. The 20th-century movement toward home rule, or letting localities handle most of their own affairs, was once supported by both Republicans and Democrats. What’s now become clear is that Republicans dislike local control if they are not in charge of it. The home rule movement has steadily faded in the last few decades as state lawmakers on the right have become more aggressive in invalidating the priorities of elected officials in cities, which have moved leftward in their voting patterns in recent years.

“We are seeing a real increase in the pre-emption of local authority,” said Clarence Anthony, the chief executive of the National League of Cities and a former mayor of South Bay, Fla. “Local officials are elected by citizens to represent them, and they’re the ones who know what their citizens need the most. But we’ve been seeing state legislators trying to have control over local communities, and that’s not good governance at all.”

Does Jesus Hate J.D. Salinger?

From: (Active Duty MRFF Client's and Military Member’s E-mail Address Withheld)

Subject: The Catcher in the Rye

Date: June 2, 2023 at 2:09:41 PM MDT

To: Information Weinstein <mikey@militaryreligiousfreedom.org>

Mr. Weinstein, I am stationed overseas in an active duty combat billet and wanted to finally thank you all the MRFF for intervening on my behalf to help me when my (mid-level military command title withheld) ordered me to stop reading the classic book “The Catcher in the Rye”. I only read it on my personal meal time at the DFAC ("dining facility") at (military installation name withheld).

He had told me that "as a believing Christian" it offended him to see me read it. He never ever said how it offended him. He outranked me by a lot so what could I do?

I also want to stress that this (mid-level military command title withheld) is always reading aloud from his bible and carries it everywhere in front of all of us under his command and is almost always present with him at our (unit title withheld) meetings.

After you contacted our (senior level commander’s title withheld) 2 things happened within a few days.

First, I was informed that I could go back to reading my book “The Catcher in the Rye” by author J.D. Salinger at the DFAC or any other time I was not on mission duty.

Second, Our (mid-level military command title withheld) was told to stop publicly reading from and displaying his bible at our mandatory unit meetings.

This all happened back in mid-April and I’m sorry it took so long to thank you.

I cannot stress enough how much I owe to the MRFF for making this mess go in the right direction.

(Active duty military member’s name, rank, unit and installation all withheld)

Who Can You Trust? If It is Crypto, Nobody.

The Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday sued Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, alleging the overseas company operated an illegal trading platform in the U.S. and misused customers’ funds.

The SEC lawsuit also named Changpeng Zhao, Binance’s founder and controlling shareholder, as a defendant. The SEC said that Binance and Zhao misused customers’ funds and diverted them to a trading entity that Zhao controlled. That trading firm, Sigma Chain, engaged in manipulative trading that made Binance’s volume appear larger than it actually was, the SEC said.

Binance also concealed that it commingled billions of dollars in customer assets and sent them to a third-party, Merit Peak, which was owned by Zhao, the SEC alleged. The Wall Street Journal reported last year that the SEC was examining the relationship between Binance.US—the U.S. arm created in 2019—and Sigma Chain and Merit Peak.

“This will be a landmark case,” said Kurt Gottschall, a partner at Haynes and Boone LLP and former head of the SEC’s Denver office. “The SEC appears to be very concerned about the commingling of customer funds.”

The SEC filed the case in federal court in the District of Columbia. Binance engaged in “blatant disregard of the federal securities laws and the investor and market protections these laws provide,” the agency wrote in its court complaint.

U.S. regulators have been circling Binance for years, with the SEC and the Justice Department sending subpoenas to its U.S. arm in late 2020, according to documents viewed by the Journal. Officials have ramped up enforcement efforts over the past year, after the collapse of numerous crypto companies including one of Binance’s biggest rivals, FTX.

The lawsuit adds to Binance’s challenges with U.S. regulators and law enforcement. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission alleged in March that Binance and Zhao evaded that agency’s rules, which cover platforms that offer derivatives to American traders. Binance also faces a Justice Department investigation over its program to detect money laundering, according to people familiar with the matter.

The SEC’s court complaint asks a federal judge to freeze Binance’s assets and appoint a receiver, typically an outside lawyer or other professional who is given control of the company. The receiver is given the authority to track and preserve users’ assets.